the boxes,” she said.

“Sounds like you were set for college,” Doc replied. “Isn’t that a box?”

“Maybe we could continue this conversation another time?” Topaz’s phone buzzed in her lap saving her from traveling down a dark road. Having let one tear drop today was more than her allotted amount.

“Okay. When do you want to set up another video chat?” Doc asked.

Topaz swiped her finger across the screen to answer the call before it went to voicemail. “Next week same day and time,” she offered but didn’t wait for a reply before disconnecting. “Nanna. Is everything okay?”

“Oh, Sarah dear. Everything is fine. I was just wondering if you could get some more of that medicine I use for my asthma?”

“Sure. I’ll go to the clinic today. I’m sure I’ll be able to get you some. I’ll mail them out right away.”

“Oh, that would be great sweetie. Thank you.” Topaz talked to her Grandma for a few more minutes then hung up as the music got louder for the lunchtime guests.

Her body was drained and she really hadn’t even spoken to Doc. A full session might hurt her, then again anything with her past was painful. Right now, she knew she was in a pain cycle and at some point, she wouldn’t be able to outrun it. Glancing at the clock, she knew she had about an hour before the mail would be scooped up from the post office. Strange, how she’d learned all the ins and outs of Turnabout Creek. This really had become her home. Roadkill was right, this wasn’t a place, it was her home.

2

Dallas “Onyx” King parked his motorcycle at the curb of the clinic. He needed to get a checkup from Red, whether he wanted to or not. Limping his way toward the front, he pulled opened the heavy glass door and walked inside.

Preacher Girl sat behind the receptionist desk, the glow of the newly married on her smiling face.

“Hey Preacher Girl. How ya doin’ today?”

“I’m good, Onyx. You?” The sweet wife of Hack beamed back at him, still absently turning the ring on her left hand. She may be a kid, not quite drinking age, but the sweet Preacher Girl had endeared herself to him.

“I’m good. I’m here for my appointment with Red.”

“If you have a seat, we’ll get you back in a few.”

He nodded and went to the chairs to sit. His leg was killing him, or what was left of it. His prosthetic needed to be adjusted or what he really feared was that he needed a new one and it had to be made. Waking up after he’d lost his leg had been one of the worst days of his life.

“All I’m saying is you can’t dance to it, so what’s the point,” Dallas told his rookie partner as they turned to patrol the Compton neighborhood in LA. “Life is about finding joy.”

“Is it now,” Officer Nettles replied in her usually droll manner.

“Besides, you’re a kid, how do you even know who Pearl Jam and Nirvana are?”

“Well I might not be old enough to have seen The Beatles in concert—”

“Ouch,” he replied, holding his hand to his chest. “It’s the criminals that are supposed to fire on me, not my partner.”

“I can respect the classics,” she replied.

“The fact you call them classic hurts my soul,” he replied while keeping an eye out for any dangers only to see a relaxed day with kids playing a game of football in their yards. At least, they weren’t playing in the street. That concrete was rough on a kid trying to go out for an over thrown ball.

“Yep, sorry your high school—”

“Junior high, heck I might have been still in grade school when Kirk Cobain died,” he rebuffed trying to remember when Smells Like Teen Spirit came out. It wasn’t that he didn’t listen to grunge and the whole Seattle scene, but it couldn’t be a person’s only go to music. You’d throw your neck out with the prescribed dance. Forget metal, grunge is the real headbanging music.

“Alright, what should I be listening to?” she asked.

He turned on the radio spinning the dial. LA had a radio scene for sure. You could find anything and everything. Moving past the Spanish, talk radio, current hits he landed on K-Earth and their classic station. The first few beats were starting from The Jacksons hit Blame it on the Boogie.

“Hey,” she said pointing to a box in the road and he pulled to the side. “We got debris.”

“I got it,” he said turning up the song. “Now watch this. People will be coming out of houses to dance with me.”

He shuffled his way toward the box, sliding and flipping from one side to the other. An older woman came out of her house laughing and clapping from her porch. He splayed his hands when they sang ‘sunshine’. Clapping on the beat as Nettles shook her head with a bright smile on her face.

A slight breeze swooped down the street and the discarded box moved a bit before he could reach down and pick it up. All he could think later was it was his guardian angel flapping her wings because if he’d have bent over instead of performing a spin move, he would have died. Instead, a loud blast made his ears ring as the discarded box exploded sending shrapnel in every direction.

Searing heat erupted up his left leg as he flew backward into the middle of the street. Head slamming on the hard pavement added stars to the ringing in his ears from the concussive blast. The song now a muffled beat in the distance as he rolled his head to see the woman gone from the porch and Nettles kneeling by his side. One hand on her radio, the other drawn with her gun swooping around the area as if someone was near and actually going to take credit for this.

Red walked out with a chart in his hand. “Onyx. Come on in.”

He got up and

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